


a prescription i support

by bastaerd



Series: all well [3]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: (in a sense!), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Old Married Couple, i mean they're not all that old but they have big old married energy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25398634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastaerd/pseuds/bastaerd
Summary: “There’s a Halloween party coming up,” Alexander explains, “the last I heard.”Stephen makes a face like Alexander has just reminded him of a particularly unpleasant appointment, or offered him a can of spoiled meat.“Hmm,” he says, “so there is."“I’m wondering when you were planning on inviting me along."“I’m wondering where you got the impression that I intend to attend."
Relationships: Dr Alexander McDonald/Dr Stephen S. Stanley
Series: all well [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839514
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	a prescription i support

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zucchinigal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zucchinigal/gifts).



> i apologize for any british-isms i've either mangled or neglected to include. also for medical/hospital stuff i've gotten wrong, because i definitely have.

“One of your patients mistook me for their father on the way in.”

“Must be your kindly face. Good afternoon to you, too, dear.”

Alexander turns his cheery face up towards the visitor in the doorway to his office. Dr. Stephen Samuel Stanley regards him with less enthusiasm, though Alexander knows him well enough to pinpoint the traces of familiar affection here and there-- the set of his mouth, the corners of his eyes, the relaxation in his posture, if one could truly call it relaxation. The biggest tip-off is the ring on his left hand; while he is working, he is required to remove it so that it is just one less thing to lose in a patient’s insides, but when he has a break, he puts it right back on. If someone knows two things about Stephen, Alexander wagers, they are that he is pricklier than a sea urchin, and that he is married.

Stephen gives a huff of breath that means, “Yes, good afternoon, I am so glad to have found time to see my darling husband whom I love somewhere between our busy schedules,” or something thereabouts, and Alexander stands from his desk and shuts down his computer, meeting him in the doorway. One hand on the small of Stephen’s back, he gives him a kiss on the cheek, and feels his husband’s hand touch his hip briefly.

“You always get grumpy when you haven’t had lunch,” Alexander comments, to which Stephen replies, “I’m a veritable ray of sunshine. Ask any of my patients.”

“Your patients spend the majority of their time with you either unconscious or so deep in shock that they may as well be.”

“And yours scream and cry and projectile vomit, if we’re playing the comparison game.”

“So do yours. Much worse than mine, let me remind you.”

After Alexander locks up his office, the conversation continues as they walk to the hospital’s cafeteria. Hardly a place for a lunch date, but the two of them have long since progressed past the point of needing everything to be a romantic gesture. Sitting in each other’s company, talking about their days (more than one, likely), and smiling (or scowling good-naturedly) at each other over their coffee cups is enough. Five minutes later finds them doing just that, after they’ve bought their food and found a table to themselves, far enough away from the heart of the room that they don’t feel like someone is breathing down their necks. Alexander suggests a table by the window; Stephen reminds him that he’ll fall asleep in the middle of his pasta if he sits in the sunlight (conveniently leaving out the fact that he would do the same), and steers them towards a spot in the corner. Neither remark upon the fact that Alexander routinely orders food he doesn’t need to cut up himself; they have long since let it fall into the category of inexplicable idiosyncrasies they have discovered both about themselves and each other. As they set their trays on the table and sit down, Stephen gives a long sigh and deflates into his chair.

“Been quite a long day,” Alexander tuts in sympathy.

“Quite a long two days,” Stephen corrects him, or agrees. There are clear circles under his eyes, adding a layer of world-weariness to his severe expression. He hides it well, but Alexander knows that seeing people come in, afraid and in great pain and varying states of emergency, wears him down. _Like the sole of a shoe,_ Stephen might say. _Like a sea-facing cliff,_ Alexander would counter, _but if you’re determined to call yourself tough and leathery, by all means, don’t let me stand in your way._

Silence settles as the two of them sip their coffee and tuck into their lunches. Already Alexander can sense Stephen perking up, as much and as outwardly as the man can. He’s even sitting back in his chair some. Alexander is happy to see this version of him, about midway between _Dr. Stanley_ and _Stephen-be-a-dear-for-me._ That’s when he decides to broach the topic weighing on his mind.

“So?”

“So?” Stephen echoes, a quizzical brow raised, spoon paused halfway to his mouth.

“There’s a Halloween party coming up,” Alexander explains, mirroring the expression with rather more curiosity, “the last I heard.”

Stephen makes a face like Alexander has just reminded him of a particularly unpleasant appointment, or offered him a can of spoiled meat.

“Hmm,” he says, “so there is,” and goes right back to his soup.

If he thinks he can get out of the conversation by looking down his nose at his tray and filling his mouth with soup, he has been sorely misinformed. Spearing his farfalle, Alexander presses on.

“I’m wondering when you were planning on inviting me along,” Alexander tells Stephen.

“I’m wondering where you got the impression that I intend to attend,” Stephen tells Alexander.

“Well, no one said you have to be a sourpuss all the time. Only on your days off.”

“Why not during, if my manner is so terrible?”

“And let your esteemed colleagues bear the brunt of it?” Alexander laughs. “No, I think I would rather handle it myself.”

He reaches across the table to Stephen’s hand, resting loosely beside his napkin, and covers it with his own.

“I _prefer_ to handle it myself,” he amends, smiling softly. “But don’t think I don’t notice you straying from the point.”

Placated by the hand over his, Stephen scoffs. He returns to the topic at hand.

“The damned Halloween party.”

He looks less than thrilled about it, as he does about anything that involves more than three people (or four or five, if one of them is Goodsir-- being in close proximity with him dramatically increases Stephen’s tolerance for non-Goodsir people) in a room together being civil outside of the context of surgery.

“It doesn’t bear discussion, if I’m not going in the first place.”

It must not have occurred to him yet that he will, in fact, be going, whether Alexander has to drag him there by the collar of whatever costume he manages to put him in or not. Perhaps a clown, so that the ruff would allow for more leverage.

“You would get to see your coworkers,” Alexander offers, knowing full well that this will not be the winning argument. “Some of them, at least.”

“I already see them,” Stephen points out, unimpressed. “We work together, Alexander, hence the ‘co-’.”

“Take me along and I’ll make it up to you.”

Again, the spoon pauses. Stephen’s forehead wrinkles horribly as he raises both eyebrows at Alexander as if to ask _How could you possibly make up for this terrible injustice?_ Indeed, “How?” is the next word out of his mouth, flat and dry and disbelieving, and, underneath all of that, interested. Morbidly so, in the same way he might be interested in a particularly noteworthy compound fracture. Alexander has as good as gotten him.

“Haven’t decided yet,” he answers breezily, turning his attention to his pasta. “Make good on your end of the deal, and we can discuss.”

“I know you know that that’s not how contracts work,” Stephen replies. It makes Alexander giggle.

“My god, a contract!”

“You’re the one who refuses to make a real offer until I uphold my end.”

“Stephen, I don’t think _you_ know how a contract works, either.”

“Why should I? I am a doctor of medicine, not of law.”

“A doctor of law?” Alexander snorts. “My dear, have you heard the word ‘lawyer’ in your life?”

“I’m about to call one right now,” Stephen grumbles, hiding his sharp frown and the pink of his cheeks behind his coffee cup. “Start filing for a divorce on account of irreconcilable Halloween differences.”

If the fifteen years they have spent happily married to each other is any indication, tonight will find them watching television on the couch until they start falling asleep on each other like old men, and then migrating to bed to fall asleep for real. Stephen will wake first and, when he wakes as well, Alexander will find him sitting up in bed and trying to read without a light on. He will chastise Stephen for straining his eyes, reading glasses or not, and Stephen will tell him that if anyone is an expert on his own eyes, it is undoubtedly him. They will exchange morning kisses and head downstairs to make breakfast. The familiarity of this routine doesn’t make it any less dear, to either of them.

“How’s this, then,” Alexander says. “Take me along with you and I won’t be the one to drag you along with me. Offer.”

Stephen looks into the depths of his soup for a moment. Likely drawing strength from it, Alexander thinks to himself, the dear man. When he raises his head again, his expression is composed, but surprisingly relaxed, his eyebrows raised and something in his eyes that is foreign to his fellow surgeons, but that Alexander recognizes.

“Counteroffer,” he replies. “Accept my _invitation,_ and you won’t have to drag me anywhere at all.”

Alexander beams. While Stephen doesn’t return the smile, something settles in his face, and he looks buoyed as Alexander extends his hand.

“I accept your invitation,” says Alexander, “and the terms of your contract.”

Stephen takes his hand and gives it a good, businesslike shake.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Dr. McDonald.”

“Likewise, Dr. Stanley.”

They remained with their hands joined over the table, left hand and left hand, their rings knocking together and their arms forming a curve around their trays so as not to knock anything over. In a while, Alexander will need to retreat back to his office, and Stephen will probably catch a nap, if he can find the time. For now, they eat their lunch and drank their coffee and relish in a temporary mercy from work, and in each other’s company.

“Now all we need’s to find you a costume.”

**Author's Note:**

> dr stanley still has not been invited to any weddings, but he has been to his own.  
> find me on [tumblr](http://harrydsgoodsir.tumblr.com).


End file.
